Moreover, urban educators report the growing challenges of educating urban youth who are increasingly presented problems such as poverty, limited English proficiency, family instability, and poor health. Testimony and reports on the condition of urban schools feed the perception that urban students flounder in decaying, violent environments with poor resources, teachers, and curriculums and with limited opportunities. The report addresses certain widespread beliefs about the performance of urban students and their family and school environments. Using data from several national surveys, the authors compare urban students and schools with their suburban and rural counterparts on a broad range of factors, including student population and background characteristics, afterschool activities, school experiences, and student outcomes. A specific focus of the report is on how poverty relates to student and school characteristics. It is shown that urban students and schools compare less favorably than their nonurban counterparts on many measures, even after accounting for the higher concentration of low-income students in urban schools. Evidence is presented, however, to challenge the perception that urban schools with high poverty concentrations are always much worse off than other schools. 11 figures